{"id":1265,"date":"2007-03-02T07:51:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-02T07:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2007-03-02T07:51:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-02T07:51:00","slug":"home-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/news\/home-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Home empowerment’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5037236540722282242\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The CA<\/i> has a story<\/a> today about BeJane.com<\/a>, a site for women wanting to delve into the world of do-it-yourself home improvement. Those ladies up there in the stiletto workboots are the founders of the site. <\/p>\n

It’s sad, really, that the concept behind a pretty useful website has to be marred by the heavily gendered and feminized marketing gimmicks on display here. <\/p>\n

Of course, there is the argument that having a site for women DIYers makes no sense. Home improvement seems to be an inherently ungendered activity if you, as I do, subscribe to the notion that we are all born rubes with no concept of L brackets or mastik or how to use them. So why the need for a site geared toward women? What is it that makes this site for women, exactly? <\/p>\n

Stiletto workboots and pink suede toolbelts<\/a>? Choosing a project based on the mood<\/a> you want to evoke (because women are moody, har har)?<\/p>\n

Seriously?<\/i> <\/p>\n

God, this shit gets so tiring. <\/p>\n

I could write about how these sorts of gimmicky displays of femininity \u2014 while posing as cheeky and fun! \u2014 are, collectively, a winning strategy to keep women at a disadvantage, to remind them at all times of their to-be-looked-at-ness<\/a>, their otherness, and their status as submissives who couldn’t fucking run from a train if it was headed right for them, but I think it will suffice to say that, while these women seem to be offering up a useful product (I think the mood-based projects are interesting, but I fail to see how that has anything to do with being female), their approach is profoundly stupid. And impractical. <\/p>\n

And it has nothing to do with women<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CA has a story today about BeJane.com, a site for women wanting to delve into the world of do-it-yourself home improvement. Those ladies up there in the stiletto workboots are the founders of the site. It’s sad, really, that the concept behind a pretty useful website has to be marred by the heavily gendered and feminized marketing gimmicks on display here. Of course, there is the argument that having a site for women DIYers… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[41,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1jWWl-kp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}